[gst-devel] I want to do an audio app

[iain]

On Sun, 2002-09-22 at 00:53, Tim Hockin wrote:

> 1) It takes too much effort to write a plugin.  One has to learn all the
> GLib, GObject and GStreamer APIs.  It has taken me days to figure out what
> is going on in the examples, and they are very simple.

Well, can't help there. This sort of thing comes over time...

> 
> 2) The plugins are too granular for my needs.  What I want is: 
> 	"load this mono synth and convert it to stereo"
> 	"connect it to this FX Bus, which has N effects, all stereo"
> 	"connect all the FX Busses to the master bus"
> 	"send the master output to {OSS, ALSA, file, whatever}"
> I'd need to build a way to group many GST plugs into atomic units

This is what GStreamer is very good at.
You can group items together into bigger building block and chain them
all together. Yes, this is exactly how you use GStreamer in fact :)

> 3) I'm concerned about performance - some of the tracks I've seen in windows
> used 50 or more simultaneous voices at times, and it was REALLY hard on the
> CPU.  GStreamer seems very higly normalized, which adds a lot of overhead -
> is it a real problem I should worry about?

I was worried about performance in my app, but it's not doing anything
as complicated as yours could be doing...I guess I'm not the person to
ask about this.

> 4) The bleeding edge tools needed to build GStreamer made it VERY hard for
> me to get installed and running - and I know what I am doing.  An average
> user would NEVER be able.

You only need the "bleeding edge tools" if you're building out of CVS.
Building from a tarball should be straightforward enough.

> 5) The GStreamer goals really seem to be very focused on playing media
> (especially video) and doing magic.

That sounds like what your projects goals are too...
except you generate the audio media yourself and then "do magic".
GStreamer isn't especially just for video. My app (marlin.sf.net) is
audio only and runs fine with Gstreamer.

> I'm still torn between finishing my own, much simpler, plugin API and using
> GST.  I need something to sway me :)

If you write a cool effect, then the rest of us can use it too?

iain
-- 
"If everyone is so darned proud of their country why don't they show it
in a little more useful way than pasting Flags on every flat surface.
Say, by actually _helping_ their community or something!" 
	- theSkyjet /. post